Personalized content is a must for journalism

On the afternoon of June 20, within the framework of the National Press Forum 2025, a discussion session took place with the topic "Personalizing content to keep readers loyal".

"Personalization is the goal of journalism"

Speaking at the forum, journalist Tran Viet Hung, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Thanh Nien Newspaper, acknowledged that content personalization is a necessary and mandatory direction for press agencies in the era of AI.

In the coming years, technology will enable ever broader and deeper personalization to meet the exact needs of readers. That is also the goal of the press.

Cá nhân hóa nội dung là hướng đi bắt buộc với báo chí- Ảnh 1. — Experts participating in the forum

"Personalizing content will be one of the tools for newspapers to retain readers. For press agencies, the ultimate destination is still the reader. Therefore, personalization or developing other technologies in the future will help us serve readers, help journalists fulfill their mission of serving readers, serving the interests of the nation and people," said journalist Tran Viet Hung.

Sharing the same opinion with journalist Tran Viet Hung, Mr. Bui Trung Hieu, information technology expert, MFITE Software Solutions Company Limited, said that in the context of explosive information development, the need for content personalization is becoming an inevitable trend, especially in the field of journalism and digital media.

According to Mr. Hieu, the demand for personalization is currently increasing sharply due to three main reasons: increasing user data, competition from social networks, and improving business efficiency and user experience.

In addition, the personalization implementation process is divided into three stages: using simple models such as "trend-based recommendations" to increase the amount of behavioral data collected.

Combine pre-edited content with system recommendations; start training machine learning models with collected data, deploy personalization testing by user groups; move towards 1-1 personalization, each user has a separate suggestion based on AI and real-time data.

Cá nhân hóa nội dung là hướng đi bắt buộc với báo chí- Ảnh 2. — Mr. Bui Trung Hieu spoke

The expert believes that many times, readers themselves do not know what they want. But with technologies such as user behavior analysis, combined with AI, the newsroom can understand readers better than they know themselves. This is clearly seen through platforms such as Facebook or TikTok, they understand us in an amazing way.

Mr. Hieu especially noted that newspapers need in-depth content and articles to retain loyal readers because in the current context, news information is available in every newspaper. In fact, in-depth articles and analysis will be more likely to convince readers to pay.

"Take care of readers like taking care of your own family"

Meanwhile, journalist Le Xuan Trung, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Tuoi Tre Newspaper, said that in the past, readers went looking for newspapers to read and radio stations to watch, but now journalists have to go looking for readers.

Mr. Trung believes that journalists now want to personalize content to serve loyal readers, they need to know clearly who the readers are? Where? What gender? What age? Next, find out what they like to read? What channels do they read through? When do they read?

According to journalist Le Xuan Trung, it is necessary to divide the audience according to the level of loyalty and tactics to improve interaction. In which, turn anonymous readers (not clearly identified) into regular readers (readers who visit weekly), then loyal readers (readers who visit daily), and finally member readers (readers who register as members).

Cá nhân hóa nội dung là hướng đi bắt buộc với báo chí- Ảnh 3. — Journalist Le Xuan Trung gives his opinion

"In the current development stage of digital journalism, content personalization does not stop at "sending to the right person, the right content, at the right time". The most difficult thing, which is also the highest goal, is how to take care of loyal readers like the way businesses take care of customers, like the way we take care of our family members. If we can do this, readers will definitely come back to read our newspaper", Mr. Trung emphasized.

He gave an example, getting the user database would be very difficult, so the Tuoi Tre Newspaper's technology department could not do it, so they had to hire a foreign company to operate it, and the first year's expenses were very high.

Once we have user data, Tuoi Tre Newspaper regularly interacts with users via Gmail, from which we will discover the "taste" of our readers. Next, we will divide the "taste" of our readers into groups to send "menus" (summaries of content and links to articles in the newspaper).

After sending the "menu", we will receive feedback on the reader's experience, to see if they "need anything more" to continue sending.

"We are investing maximum in sending content, surveying and responding to readers' suggestions to try to serve them in the best way," said journalist Le Xuan Trung.

However, according to Mr. Trung, to meet the needs of each user in a way that personalizes content would be beyond the capacity of a press agency without a reader care center.

The Cost of Personalization

Journalist Tran Viet Hung assessed that in the current context, personalization of press agencies is "not simple" even though the cost of technology hardware has decreased.

Cá nhân hóa nội dung là hướng đi bắt buộc với báo chí- Ảnh 4. — Journalist Tran Viet Hung speaks

He said that for leaders of governing bodies and press agencies, the question is "how much should be spent over how many years to achieve what results?". A very important question is which model should the press agency choose to develop?

"Most press agencies today do not have a technology platform to develop (except for some pure press agencies, born from technology corporations, so there will not be enough human resources and the state salary is not enough to pay for a technology employee. Therefore, most of us have to hire outside, especially hiring departments for personalization," said journalist Tran Viet Hung.

According to Mr. Hung, the investment problem will still be a "long" problem for many newspapers. He believes that it is normal for some press agencies to invest 10 billion/year in technology, so agencies that do not have enough resources can choose different tactics such as "guerrilla warfare" to suit themselves.

Sharing the same view, journalist Nguyen Truong Son, Editor-in-Chief of The Gioi Va Viet Nam Newspaper, said that the agency is gradually applying a number of personalization tools such as: registering to receive newsletters via Gmail; suggesting content by category; using Google Analytics to analyze keywords and user behavior, especially with the English version.

However, the most difficult thing is resources. With a small newsroom, a few editors and contributors, it is impossible to build a content personalization system like large newspapers.

"I am very interested in shared technology solutions, or cooperation models between press agencies, to share technical infrastructure, data platforms and user behavior analysis tools. I believe this is a more practical and feasible direction, instead of each newsroom having to "swim alone" in this huge problem," said Mr. Son.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/ca-nhan-hoa-noi-dung-la-huong-di-bat-buoc-voi-bao-chi-185250620191006547.htm